When you feel lonely in your personal life or are looking to make connections outside of your usual social circle, making friends online can be an interesting and rewarding undertaking. The Internet allows you to actively search for friends around the world who have similar interests and hobbies and are also interested in chatting with someone new. By searching the right websites and following general safety protocol, making friends online can be a positive experience.
Step 1
Create an email address to use for your online relationships. Since you'll be offering your friendship to a variety of people online that you don't know, you don't want to give out your personal information. Create an email that you don't mind being given out to strangers across the Web.
Step 2
Visit forums and message boards dedicated to your interests and hobbies. A simple online search that searches your interest and the word "forum" will yield a variety of online communities dedicated to people that you already have something in common with. Relationships forged via online communities, social networking sites and chat rooms can be moved off of the board to an email friendship.
Step 3
Try online pen-pal services that match your email address up with another interested party who is already looking for friendship online. Websites like CyberFriends.com, InterPals.com and SooperFriends.com are meant to match interested individuals with a compatible friend to create platonic relationships. Online friendships needn't be limited to chat rooms and message boards.
Step 4
Visit blogs and become an active participant in comments and giveaways. Choose a few blogs to follow hat you're interested in. If you write a blog, choose a few different blogs that you can add to your blog roll and follow. As you get to know other bloggers you'll create relationships while promoting your own blog simultaneously.
Step 5
Be honest with new friends online. It can be tempting to exaggerate your life to make it sound more interesting, but it's difficult to create a real friendship based on lies and exaggeration. Internet friends that are truly compatible will be interested in pursuing a friendship regardless of the money you make or where you live.
Step 6
Protect your identity. Even if you begin a platonic relationship with someone that you've spoken to and trust, you should never divulge personal information to those you don't personally know. Unless you plan to meet face-to-face, make sure all of the information you give your new friend is non-identifying, like your first name and interests only.
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